The People's Progressive Party took the Stabroek News to task for what it described as the opposition aligned newspaper's brazen attempt to 'tarnish the character and successes' of the former Bharrat Jagdeo Administration. This was after Stabroek News published in its Sunday, March 17 publication an Editorial captioned, ‘Pass This Bill’, which according to the PPP sought to poison the minds of its readers with smut and street talk about the former President.
Read the full PPP release below:
The People’s Progressive Party notes another brazen attempt by the Stabroek News to tarnish the character and successes of the former Bharrat Jagdeo Administration.
The opposition-aligned newspaper in its Sunday, March 17, 2014 Editorial captioned, “Pass This Bill” sought to poison the minds of its readers with smut and street talk about the former President.
The opposition-motivated editorial said among other things that;
“History will undoubtedly record the period of the Jagdeo governance from 2003 to 2011 as one of the darkest and replete with the most egregious crimes…….”
Such statements and pronouncements by a newspaper which continue to flaunt it’s so called “independence” is highly inaccurate, mischievous and a far cry from the truth.
The “darkest” period referred to by Stabroek News was triggered by the February 23, 2002 Mash Day jail break and the beginning of a reign of terror in Guyana by criminals who the P.N.C. hailed as “freedom fighters”
It was during that period the opposition-backed criminal gang of Rondell “Fineman” Rawlins attacked innocent Guyanese, shot and killed 11 law-abiding citizens including babies at Lusignan, 12 innocent Guyanese in Bartica and 13 miners who were working to make an honest living at Lindo Creek, in the Berbice River.
The Stabroek News has once again embarked on an exercise of misinformation and a distortion of history not to mention its efforts at besmirching the Jagdeo/PPP Administration.
If the Stabroek News wants to write about history “recording the darkest and most egregious crimes”, then it must refer to the assassination of Walter Rodney in 1980, the killing of two innocent Guyanese at # 63 Village during the 1973 elections and the range of terror that was unleashed in Guyana by the Burnham dictatorship under the threat that “our steel issharper”.And the 1978 Referendum to vote for the House and kill the Mouse “and the murder of Father Darke by PNC sponsored House of Israel thugs.
Moreover, the Stabroek News must prove beyond reasonable doubt that during the 2003 to 2011 period; “rampant money laundering and financing of terrorism was evident around that time.” Rather than engaging in scandalous and vexatious allegations, the Stabroek News must come clean and provide the evidence in its pages.
The PPP would like to know who, in the view of the Stabroek News will do the “careful examination” of why there was “failure across the board to detect those these activities” i.e. “rampant money laundering and financial terrorism”
The PPP is of the view that this milking of juicy gossip by the Stabroek News is nothing more than a rouse for witch hunting and a license for the opposition media to continue targeting Bharrat Jagdeo This objective are clear for all to see.
We wish to remind the Stabroek News and their backers in the political opposition, that it was the Jagdeo’s Administration that brought an end to the reign of the “Fineman Gang” and immediately after, embarked on national consultations aimed at reforming the Guyana Police Force.
Further, it was the Jagdeo Administration that led Guyana through five consecutive years of economic growth, while the rest of the world was reeling from global recession.
It was under the Jagdeo-led PPP/C Administration that Guyana initiated a plethora of socio-economic projects that have irrevocably laid the foundation to set into motion, the transformative process that is so evident throughout our country
It was this vision that resulted in Guyana rising from a State that was once the “eye pass” among its sister CARICOM Member States, where Guyanese were painfully disrespected, and the country made a virtual pariah in the international community, to one that is now lauded by all the multilateral financial agencies for exercising responsible fiscal management of the economy.
The Jagdeo Administration must be credited with the many successes in Guyana in the areas of public health, inclusive of four state of the art diagnostic centres, and new in-patient facilities at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
·The construction of numerous schools, upgrading of teacher training that now includes teachers from the Hinterland; and other programmes notably the free uniform and school feeding initiatives, and the Hinterland Scholarship Programme have all resulted in an improved delivery of education throughout the nation’s classroom;
·The University of Guyana, Tain Campus;
·The Hinterland Development programmes that are transforming the Hinterland communities into self-sustaining socio-economical units;
·The National Stadium;
·The Guyana International Conference Centre;
·The National Aquatic Centre;
·The re-building of Guyana’s international image;
·The 2007 ITLOS Award Demarcating the Maritime Boundary between Guyana and Suriname
·The realization of the Berbice River Bridge;
·The upgrade of major roadways, culverts and bridges;
·The fibre optic cable project that is intended to revolutionize the telecommunications sector;
·The innovative One Laptop per family programme resulting in the distribution of 90,000 Laptops to low income families, coupled with the installation of a computer laboratory in every school;
·The internationally acclaimed Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) with its accent on development of a green economy, and its development components for Amerindian communities;
·The on-going Cheddi Jagan International Airport Expansion Project;
·The Amaila Falls Hydro Project, which when actualized will completely transform Guyana, both socially and economically;
·The proposed Speciality Hospital;
·The distribution of thousands of house lots across the country;
The reality is that Guyana has been placed on the relevant pathway to economic development since, development projects under the Jagdeo Administration continue to impact positively on the daily lives of its citizens.
In the view of the PPP, the Jagdeo-led PPP Government must be commended for the many wise initiatives taken with regards to Guyana’s development thrust. What better testimony is there for all to see given Guyana’s seventh consecutive year of economic growth, which is continuing under Donald Ramotar’s Administration.
The so-called “dark period” to which the Stabroek News referred could only be described as a political petard in the hands of the Editors of Stabroek News and their controllers in the opposition.
source: stabroeknews